Underground landscape boxes are used by many industries as a means of housing components of the particular industry. Underground landscape boxes are almost used exclusively in landscape but can be used in a number of other areas such as large concrete areas. The underground landscape box may house electrical connections, electric valves, water shut-off valves, and cable TV connections. These samples are just a few of the many and varied applications.
As underground landscape boxes have grown in popular use, more manufacturers have emerged, each making their box unique as to size and specification. The uniqueness of each box can be seen in box circumference. In the class, econo-box, the circumference may vary from 6¼″ all the way to 7″. This difference in circumference means the corresponding lid closure will vary in its diameter resulting in as many lid closure sizes as there are manufacturers.
Over time, as millions of underground landscape boxes have been installed, the lids are subject to needed replacement from deterioration, or removal by vandalism or removal by gas powered equipment. When the end user needs to replace missing lids, they are often forced to dig up the entire underground box body and replace said box with whatever manufactured brand their local wholesaler or retailer might be carrying in any particular year.
The wholesaler and retailer arbitrarily change manufacturers over time due to better pricing, better warranty, or rebate incentives. As more and more manufacturers have entered into the same markets, wholesalers and retailers are forced to make inventory decisions based on replacement market sales. The decisions are: 1. carry multiple manufactured lines of underground landscape boxes thereby increasing inventory levels. Or 2. carry one line of underground landscape boxes and lose replacement sales to their competitors.
Prior art patents found included U.S. Pat. No. 4,591,290, entitled “Combination Adjustable Valve Box Adapter and Replacement for Broken Valve Boxes”, issued May 27, 1986 by Everett J. Prescott; U.S. Pat. No. 5,394,898, entitled “Valve Box Adapter”, issued Mar. 7, 1995 to Frank J. Turner; and U.S. Pat. No. 6,568,420, entitled “Valve Box”, issued May 27, 2003 to Saint-Gobain Performance Plastics Corporation.
In previous searched patent applications, the Prescott Patent was issued based on fixing broken boxes by placing an insertion device inside the underground box wall. This then allowed a smaller lid to be used on the box.
The Prescott patent has two problems with its methodology. 1. It uses an insertion device and then a replacement lid, which accounts for two parts, and two stock keeping units for the wholesaler or retailer to inventory. 2. It involves using a smaller lid whereas the present application has one lid that will universally fit all currently manufactured and future manufactured underground landscape boxes.
No prior technology makes a replacement lid that can be used as closure for all manufactured products on the market today or for future manufactured product.